Saturday, January 26, 2013

madrona road

happy fall! happy winter! happy new year!

When I attended my local modern quilt guild's holiday party in December, I was excited to snag a bundle of 6 Madrona Road fat quarters so that I could join in the latest MQG challenge. Participants were encouraged to create a quilt (or quilted item) using this new range from Portland designer Violet Craft. I absolutely love Violet's first collection, Peacock Lane, which I've been hoarding collecting and fondling dreaming about using for some time.

Madrona Road is offered in a couple of colorways. My guild got the blue/grey/yellow stack. The colors are soft and spa-like - different from my usual pull toward jewel tones and bright, fruit-punch rainbows. Here are the fabrics that were in my bundle:

I knew I wanted to either design my own quilt or use a "method" instead of a pattern. I had settled on a simple, offset coin pattern that would feel like bricks as kind of a play on the "road" part of the range name. But when I got to ironing and really looking at the fabrics, this one struck me.

I just really love that herringbone - or is it a chevron? who knows. Either way, it compelled me to go in a different direction. I got out the graph paper and resolved to reinterpret this fabric design as a quilt. It worked, and the swearing was almost zero. Once I got the hang of cutting on the 45-degree line on my mat, the herringbone inset came together quickly.

My original intent was to use a charcoal solid as the background color on the front, but everything I had access to at that moment wasn't right. It was either too light or too purple. I consulted with a gang of quilty friends and we tried white and linen and a yarn-dyed linen blend. They were "fine," which everyone knows is code for "meh." Ultimately I settled on this not-quite-navy blue solid, and I'm "really pleased" with the end result, which everyone knows is code for "YOU GUYS THIS IS SO GOOD, RIGHT?!"

I pieced a back that echoes the front with a panel of the inspiration print and a medium grey solid background.

I machine-quilted it, echoing the front panel herringbone and extending the straight lines out to the edges of the quilt.

On the back it creates a quilted herringbone in the negative space, which makes me happy.

For the binding I used a coordinating print that I picked up at my LQS. I like how it reads a solid from afar and really plays well with both the not-quite-navy on the front and the grey on the back.

Overall I'm once again totally geeked that my graph paper design translated to a finished quilt so smoothly and perfectly. The novelty of that never wears off.

Another member of my guild commented that she felt liberated to try new things because she had been given the fabric rather than purchasing it herself. I tend to agree that there's a certain sense of freedom and decisiveness that comes with these MQG challenge projects. Having a deadline helps (not that I've come close to meeting it in the past). It's not lost on me that my Peacock Lane stash is still sitting there waiting to be exhumed from the depths of my fabric closet, while this Madrona Road bundle only glanced the cutting table way-station for a hot second.

Can't wait to see everyone else's challenge quilt! With the deadline fast approaching, there are sure to be a flurry of finishes this week.

Beautiful!! I just LOVE the pieced continuous broken herringbone strip on the front! Can you provide some directions on how you did that? (especially since you said you were able to get it with minimal swearing..haha!). I would love to see if I can make a whole quilt with a design like that!